Shoot your shot? Take a chance? Society bombards us with messages, phrases, examples and stories of how taking risk is the key to success, but is anything ever that simple? We asked some of the brightest folks we know to tell us about how they think about risk. We’ve shared their responses below.

Nathen McVittie

Two main things come to mind about risk, and both are related. One is that nothing was ever certain, and the other is that I had nothing to fall back on. For me, any risk in actually doing something was always much less fear-inducing than the risk of not actually doing anything. Read More>>

Robin Antin

When I started this 30 years ago it was a passion project, not knowing that I would ever make any money from it— for ten years. When I got the opportunity to turn it into a girl band, it changed my life. We auditioned girls looking for our lead singer— that’s when we found Nicole Scherzinger who became the face and the voice. Read More>>

Per Norberg

I’ve always viewed risk as secondary as every important decision in my life has been made based on intuition or ‘gut feeling’ rather than any set of logics. I just know.. Read More>>

Sara Rogers

One of the biggest risks I’ve taken with Natural Glo has been expanding with a mindset of low-risk, high-reward growth. When you’re building a beauty brand, especially in the sunless industry, opening additional locations or investing into growth can feel scary. But I’ve always approached expansion strategically rather than emotionally. For me, low-risk, high-reward means testing before scaling. Read More>>

Aleo Covi

That’s a great question. Being an artist, I’m very aware that this whole creative career is a risk I’m willing to take. I’ve taken risks before and some didn’t end well, while other risks resulted in very big rewards. What are some risks I’m taking? Well, right now, it’s sticking to art. Read More>>